Wednesday, 21 November 2007

I stumbled upon this YouTube video documenting the plight of the Great Apes of Borneo. Just before the thirteen minute mark it begins to detail the life of Pony, an orang-utan who was used as a sex-toy. Pony was shaved every couple of days and sold in a brothel which also offered human whores. In Borneo palm oil production (for lip salve, ice cream, chocolates, and cheese crackers) which, pretty much equal with soya now, represents the largest destroyer of habitat on the planet, already accounts for more orang-utan suffering than elsewhere. Now those who destroy that habitat and rape the land seem to want to rape the refugees as well.

Pony is an orang-utan from a prostitute village in Borneo. We found her chained to a wall, lying on a mattress. She had been shaved all over her body.

If a man walked near her, she would turn herself around, present herself, and start gyrating and going through the motions. She was being used as a sex slave. She was probably about six or seven years old when we rescued her, but she had been held captive by a madam for a long time. The madam refused to give up the animal because everyone loved Pony and she was a big part of their income. They also thought Pony was lucky, as she would pick winning lottery numbers.

When asked whether the 'clients' realized that they were in fact getting an orang-utan, rather than the more traditional Great Ape, the human, Michelle's response is astounding:

Oh yeah, they would come in especially for it. You could choose a human if you preferred, but it was a novelty for many of the men to have sex with an orang-utan. They shaved her every other day, which meant that her skin had all these pimples and was very irritated. The mosquitoes would get to her very badly and the bites would become septic and be very infected, as she would scratch them constantly. They would put rings and necklaces on her. She was absolutely hideous to look at.

It took us over a year to rescue her, because every time we went in with forest police and local officers we would be overpowered by the villagers, who simply would not give her up. They would threaten us with guns and knives with poison on them. In the end it took 35 policemen armed with AK-47s and other weaponry going in there and demanding that they hand over Pony. It was filmed by a local television crew and in the background of the film when we are unchaining Pony you can hear the madam crying hysterically, screaming, “They are taking my baby, you can’t do this!” There is no law enforcement in Indonesia so these people didn’t face any sentence or anything for what they had done.

I found this surprisingly alarming, but mostly it amazes me how much sex dictates the way we, as a species, act and also how much emphasis we, in the West, put on the treatment and welfare of animals. I have no doubt at all that the human prostitutes in that village were treated far worse than Pony. Indeed, according to Unicef:

In Indonesia, it is estimated that 100,000 children and women are trafficked each year. Child prostitution is on the rise, and one third of the sex workers are being under 18 years old. The underlying causes of child trafficking include poverty and lack of economic opportunities for young people, the low status of girls, high demand for commercial sex, cheap labour, weak law enforcement, discrimination and conflict. Surveys on trafficking and sexual exploitation conducted in East Asia, including in Indonesia, show that trafficking of children is lucrative, well organized and linked to criminal activity and corruption. It is also transnational, often hidden and therefore hard to combat.

I have to wonder exactly why we are focussing on the orang-utan. I weigh 195.4lbs

=================I am having a poo=================

I weigh 193.8lbs. I think I need to diet.

I heard a complaint from the chap who runs Binary Dinosaur that a rather rummy sort of chap on the locomotive was shouting into his mobile telephone. I offered the suggestion that he answer the telephonist's every word, thus:

Him:"Hi!"You:"Hi!"Him:"Have you spoken to Ellie about the audit yet"You:"What audit? I don't know what you are talking about"Him:"I need it by tonight."You:"Well then, you've hardly given me sufficient warning, have you?"Him:"Sorry, some nutter is shouting at me on the train."You:"it's annoying when that happens, isn't it?"Him:"I'll call you back."You:"I don't remember giving you my number"

I also sing opera loudly and badly when I experience chavcasts. This generally gets a response along the lines of 'Shut up, you can't sing' to which I retort 'And your 'phone speaker cannot handle that volume', shrug and continue.

Since I'm on a roll, I always say 'you're welcome' to people who fail to say thank you.